Candytree have consistently released album for what seems like decades. They exist as something emblematic of persistence.
The Cathode Rain is startling is so far as they sound completely rejuvenated and tonally mature.
The majority of readers of this review will not be familiar with Candytree. Psychedelic pop: playing card indie, kings, jacks, boxed genres and colour wheels. In 1995 they would have been at the vangard of the shoegaze-pop post Mary Chain sensibility. Through the ensuing years they have admitted trod water and at various times threatened to drown to personnel wanderings, indifference and the spectre of poverty. How sublimely staggering is it to receive an album as great as The Cathode Rain.
The guitar's reminiscence of early Radiohead and the processed female vocals bring to mind the hugely underrated Medicine of, yes you guessed it, 1995. Do we remember the impact of The Crow soundtrack? The swaying noisecore of Time Baby III depicted gothically malevolent in that sublime slice of visual overproduction and teen fantasy, echoes through many parts of this album. Remember kids, that Radiohead of their time weren't that unique; their early light was shared with Medicine (Time Baby III), Spaceman 3 (Ladies and Gentlemen we are floating in space), and Adorable (Sistine Chapel Ceiling).
It's history now so feel the potsherd, taste the lime and exhume shoegaze's corpse because if S.C.U.M have taught us anything it's that it's time to shine, darkly.
Speaking of Adorable, they used to be called The Candy Thieves, so the circularity of history is once again repeating itself. One feels that The Cathode Rain might be well served, at least with the release of The Cathode Rain of changing their name and starting afresh. They now have the ammunition. Cathode kills all comers. It has become weirdly and undeniably relevant.
The power inherent in The Cathode Rain exceeds my pathetic and obsessive love of 90s Shoegaze with its losers, cold bitches, wet shoulders, and ridiculous conversations on Milan Kundera. It rounds out the trifecta of S.C.U.M and YUCK by its revolt of paisley, malcontent, social realism and saccharine sweetness. It's an album that is great for all the reasons that S.C.U.M and Yuck give us pause (and they're still good). We should uphold Candytree because they have made it through the otherside and have brought the nectar of hell with them, which makes this release so much the sweeter.
The Cathode Rain out now.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. – Aristotle
